I love the entire conversation with the sand people. It wouldn’t be terribly interesting if we could just talk to him directly, but HK-47 is able to give this layer of meta-commentary about what things are touchy subjects and what concepts would be hard for the other side to comprehend. The HK dialog is doing triple duty: It characterizes HK, it does some Sand People worldbuilding, and it relates the details and rationale of your next task.

68 thoughts on “Knights of the Old Republic EP30: Is it Naked Time Already?”

First, a word on fast travel. After leaving the Czerka offices, Josh could have fast-travelled back to the Sand People camp, but in order to do so he would have first had to walk back into the docking area. You can fast-travel to and from almost anywhere on Tatooine, the lone exception being the area with the krayt dragon. Tattooine is big, but the fast-travel makes it bearable. The inability to fast-travel is part of what makes Kashyyyk so frustrating.

Second, a word on immersion and map design. Have you ever thought about the Czerka marker posts that mark the edge of the map in the Dune Sea? You may have noticed that they go right up to the edge–almost to the very door–of the Sand People camp. I pity the poor employee or contractor who got that job. “It started off boring as hell but have you ever tried to drive a post into the ground while fighting off three Sand People at once? That’s not easy, man!” Poor fellow. None of the drunks back in Junix Nard’s cantina would believe him.

More seriously, I can appreciate Bioware’s desire to avoid re-using the box canyon trick to mark the edges of the map. That wouldn’t make too much sense in a place called the Dune Sea. Still, I found the marker posts were more than my sense of immersion would bear. It’s one thing to have them near the city, but they go right up to the Sand People camp and the krayt dragon cave. It’s ridiculous.

Well Glitch is here. So whatever horrible bug-curse that was place on Josh’s family would also effect him. Maybe it’s just that the two together creates some sort of double negative space that actually prevents bugs from happening.

I know exactly what bug Josh is talking about because it happened to me the very first time I played the game. The bizarre thing is that it hasn’t happened once in any of the dozens of times I’ve played the game since.

I forgot that this game has special underpants for Dark Siders. Of all the aesthetic changes your alignment affects, that always struck me as the strangest. Dark Side Soldiers get black and red PJs with Malak’s Sith logo proudly emblazoned on it. It’s Subtle.

I like to think that even if you go to Tatooine first Callo Nord still spends a week waiting for you on Kashyyk, only to get bored and then eat his Wookiee companions before chasing you toTatooine. Which is why Callo only shows up after you get the Star Map on Tattoine while he appears earlier on Kashyk.

It actually makes a lot of sense why your character doesn’t understand Sand People speach. Why would anyone bother learning the language of an obscure backwater tribe on some sand-ridden planet? Atleast learning Wookieeeze let’s you communicate with your dog, and a selkath have a monopoly on Kolto, so you might want to learn their language.

But sand people? They don’t even have space ships, who cares what they have to say.

Funnily enough, if you encounter either Calo or Darth Bandon on Manaan, you actually have the option of asking them how they were able to find you. That option is missing from every other encounter on every other planet, even though it’s a pertinent enough question.

“Calo Nord? What are you doing here?”
“What are YOU doing here? I”m on vacation! This is my annual camping trip!”
“Oh. Sorry”
“No need to apologize. You’ve saved me the trouble of looking for you.”
[Begin combat]

There’s also a datapad in Davik’s base about Calo Nord being after a krayt dragon in Tatooine. In my first play through I went to Tatooine first and I found him outside. I thought that was fixed and I was wondering how they’d deal with the player deciding to go later, thinking he’d be leveled up with the player. Then I went first to Kashyyyk in the next play through, found him there and I was a little disappointed.

In all honesty I suspect that the disparity is due to the events on Kashyyyk; even after finding the Star Map, you partake in a Wookie rebellion (or put it down). Bioware may have decided that having Calo Nord find you after you deal with the Star Map messes up their narrative pacing.

I always thought it was strange that every Tusken seems to wear some sort of breath mask or respirator. Tatooine is their home planet; can they not breathe the air correctly? If it’s because the environment that harsh, why do no humans or other species, native or non, ever have similar needs or difficulties? What was life like for them before inventing those respirators? Did they live somewhere milder before that? That raises the uncomfortable question of “Is Tatooine really a single-biome planet?” so forget I asked.

The baknamy of Final Fantasy XII are based almost precisely on Tusken, down to this very detail- along with its nonsensical implications.

If you go through the full route of talking to the Tuskens about their history in the game, they explain the outfits (it’s a religious thing) and a little bit of Tatooine’s history.

Tatooine used to be a green world, but the Rakata bombed it into the desert it is now. You can even suggest that the sand people are an offshoot of humanity and Tatooine was the original human homeworld, which strains the Storyteller’s belief to its pathetic meatbag maximum and the sand people all try to kill you.

(It’s been a few years since I played, but that’s how I remember it, anyway.)

Ever heard of Fremen? Stillsuits? The mask is there to capture any moisture that would leave through mouth. If Tantoine is a desert planet ala Dune it is essential you loose as little of the water as possible. Which does make placing their camp in the middle of the dune sea in the open silly.

Maybe they set up camp there because the place is called the Dune SEA. Not their fault the cartographers were a bunch of liars. The Sand People have had terrible luck with places with Nonindicitive names ever since they migrated from Space Greenland, which for the record, isn’t in space.

Others are not primitive nomads and have their dehumidifiers (pardon me, moisture vaporators) to provide enough water. Also I always thought that tusken head wrap is supposed to protect from dust and sandstorms, since they don’t have fancy houses for shelter. Why Tuareg are wearing their traditional garb while silly Englishmen are wearing khaki shorts and safari helmets? And that’s exactly what it is, desert natives vs colonists. Also it’s a dune rip-off and only fremen wear stillsuits there, because again non-desert cultures don’t care about loss of water.

But they don’t live like Sand People, moving from place to place with only clothes on their back and whatever can fit into bantha saddlebag. For a colonist sandstorm means suck it up until you can get inside your house (or a sandcrawler in case of Jawas), just don’t go too far from it and you are fine. Tuskens have to deal with sandstorms without any shelter.

Its not much of a Dune rip-off – *everyone* who works in the open desert (and even in the cities) wears a stillsuit. They even had stillsuits for imported donkeys they tried to use for labor.

The *ruling family* doesn’t wear them routinely- Harkonnen nobles at all and the Atreides only because they actually ventured out in person – because they are so rich that they don’t need them. Either everything is done by their proxies or, on the rare occassions that they need to attend to something personally, they would have humongous entourage/security detail to ensure their safety.

I seem to recall imperial survey guy giving Artreides some stillsuits he acquired from Fremen when they go to see spice harvester, but it has been a looong time since I read the book. I might be very wrong, but I got impression that people in the cities don’t wear them, and the ones for spice crews are inferior and they don’t even wear them properly.

Sand People are kind of weird, since they have a lot of Native American pop culture tropes attached to them but remain wholly unsympathetic murderous assholes even as audience sensibilities change around them.

They’re almost sympathetic that one time Anakin slaughters an entire settlement of them.

But yeah, I suppose the main reason that they’re not sympathetic (other than mindlessly copying the movies) is that the pristine nature that they’re always murdering settlers over is literally wasteland. One of the areas on Tatooine is called the Judland Wastes.

He doesn’t say anything. That makes him all cool and mysterious. They almost managed that with Darth Maul too. Note how Boba and Jango both get plenty of dialogue in Episode 2 and they are much less cool there.

For me it’s not only how he is mysterious but how other characters act around him. Vader singles him out of “bounty hunter scum” for disintegrating bounties in the past, and he looks him in the eye with no hint of fear (helmet helps). When Lando, owner of Cloud City, gets smacked with “I altered the deal” Boba not only argues for his position, Vader reassures him (twice!) that he will be compensated if Solo dies . Dark Lord of the Sith agrees that bounty hunter should be able to take a prisoner he just cashed in from Empire and collect extra bounty from the gangster. That request takes some balls, and Vader treats him as an equal. An admiral has two screw ups and he gets force choked without single word. Boba Fett does nothing because other characters do stuff for him, and this is why he is cool.

Neither do I. I’ve never seen anything cool about him. Or his family. He says nothing, when Vader puts his objective in risk he just whines. And he dies a very clumsy death. Jar Jar level clumsy. He has a jet pack but doesn’t think of using it at any point. He has a gun against a lightsaber wielding guy and he walks within his reach and doesn’t shoot immediately allowing him to cut his weapon off. His father has a similar idiotic death. He’s the Jar Jar Binks of the original trilogy.

Speaking of which, while The Empire Strikes Back is the best film of the trilogy, I like more the picture of power I get from A New Hope: the Emperor above all, beneath him a group of men that would be sort of effective governing body under him who are equal between each other (with Tarkin possibly being the President/Prime Minister) and of whom Lord Vader is one of them. Then a Senate which is a remnant of the previous regime that they couldn’t remove until just now and whose ships they can’t go hunting out openly because there would be consequences. It’s a little more complex construct than the later Emperor and right hand with absolute control over the galaxy. From tESB/RotJ killing the Emperor would be the end of the Empire with the problems of the change coming merely for its size and remnants that may resist the change. From ANH killing the Emperor wouldn’t be the big thing to achieve the change of reign, there’d still be the council of Moffs which would easily keep it going naming a new Emperor, you’d simply have one without Dark Side powers. Maybe that’s the reason for the change: Lucas wanted to have RotJ as a good enough end of the saga and by making it a simple one uber powerful Emperor ruling directly with just a non descript group of very shady looking personal advisors of no discernible power, just killing him can be enough to believe in an end to the evil Empire.

P.S. – So the picture didn’t get post.
This was a reply to Zaxares but it appears as new post.

First of, he managed to be the one thing that didn’t fully suck in the holiday special. That’s a major accomplishment right there. I wouldn’t say he was good, but leaps ahead of anything else in that.

Second, his first movie introduction (original cut) was Darth Vader singling him out from a group of mercenaries with a waggling finger and ‘no disintigrations’. Ie Vader had to tell him not to overdo the evil. He was then the only one who figured out Han’s disappearing trick and tracked him to cloud city.

As for his whining about Vader possibly killing Han, compare how Fett talks to Vader to Lando.
“He’s no use to me dead.”
vs.
“But you said Leia would stay here under my supervision!”

Boba Fett isn’t a deep character, and his performance in the sarlac fight was hilarious. But based on what we saw in Empire Strikes back, he was a competent and fearsome bounty hunter who even Vader considered dangerous.

I wouldn’t have thought he’d become a cult classic either, but there’re more hilarious candidates it could have happened to.

Yea, Calrissian is more whiny and there I was harsh on Boba there. When Vader points him out and Vader tells him “no disintegrations” was something that surprised me, because he knows Solo is there. Is he so tough that Vader has to control him or is he so stupid Vader has to remind him disintegrated targets can’t be taken alive? In light of that, I bet he doesn’t figure Han’s trick, he merely took that long to find out how to start his ship. :P (In seriousness, I assume that means “I know you care to get Solo alive, but I also want the others alive” so the stupid thing is just a joke).

I only watch the original cut. I don’t touch the remastered versions with a 100ft pole, unless it were to toss them to a pyre.

He was actually workshopped and designed to be the super-cool badass breakout character that he is. I remember years ago someone posted online a couple of behind-the-scenes articles on the making of Empire Strikes Back from Starlog or one of the other SF fan magazines of the day, and they had someone from LucasFilm talking about how a committee designed Fett’s helmet, and decided how scuffed up his armour would be, etc. They really went out of their way to market him as the awesome new character. He even got a special introduction in the animated segment of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, which even franchise stalwarts like Lando, Jabba, or Ackbar didn’t warrant.

The sarlac always bothered me. Digested over 10,000 years? That makes no sense. Let’s say that that 1 person per year falls into the sarlac. That’s 10,000 people in there before they are fully digested. It probably will be more organic matter than that, with a few of those yak things and other animals. Does it have a football stadium as a intestine?

How do the victims “find a new definition of pain and suffering”? They kept in suspended animation? Bored to death until they die of thirst? Get smothered by falling yaks?

And how does anyone know it takes 10,000 years? Carbon dating of shit? It eats droids and spits them out thousands of years later and they recount the conditions inside?

Just got to the point in the video where Josh offered 100 credits to stop the attacks.

Everyone points out how stupid this is, as “they have no use for money, and nowhere to spend it!” Then the very next thing they say is “we want the moisture whatevers Czerka has”. I really wish those sold for 100 credits.

Anyway, how do they know Czerka has that stuff, or how would they know how to operate them, if they’re so isolated and don’t communicate at all?